Christianity requires no proof?

[mwfanelli2]

I'm just going to ask bluntly... what evidence is there in the cosmos that hell exists? People can point to feelings and miraculous events as evidence of a God. But what events do we have supporting the notion of a hell? What evidence? What logic? What experience? Or might it just be easier just to say that hell is a cultural belief? Like the North Pole or Valhalla? This concept of hell seems to be the "fear" by which Christians can scare people into their belief system. "Believe our beliefs, or else..."

To be even more blunt: the concept of hell and the devil are attempts to explain why things go bad and why people act so horrribly towards each other (especially the faithful). Whenever something doesn't match the "goodness of god" you can scream out "The devil made me do it!"

You are arguing a lost cause here. People of faith are all too often ashamed to admit that their beliefs are, indeed, faith and not provable by any logical means. This is a silly feeling to have as faith is certainly one of the ways to look at the universe. Some prefer the logical, some the supernatural, some the emotional, some the philosophical. Yet its those who believe in the supernatural that fight the hardest to "logically prove" the road they have chosen.

[schrackman]

To be even more blunt: the concept of hell and the devil are attempts to explain why things go bad and why people act so horrribly towards each other (especially the faithful). Whenever something doesn't match the "goodness of god" you can scream out "The devil made me do it!"

Michael, my friend, never have I heard a Christian (at least not a knowledgable one) say we can blame the devil for making us do something. In fact, I cannot tell you how many times I have preached just the exact opposite. Heaven and Hell is logical because God created us with the ability to choose between good and evil, and therefore be accountable for our choice.

You are arguing a lost cause here. People of faith are all too often ashamed to admit that their beliefs are, indeed, faith and not provable by any logical means. This is a silly feeling to have as faith is certainly one of the ways to look at the universe. Some prefer the logical, some the supernatural, some the emotional, some the philosophical. Yet its those who believe in the supernatural that fight the hardest to "logically prove" the road they have chosen.

It is easy to say Christians cannot "logically" prove something when what they believe is always misconstrued. In those cases nothing can ever be logically proven.


By the way, I have to say that I did not expect this thread to engender so much interest. So I appreciate everyone who has replied thus far.

[mn shutterbug]

By the way, I have to say that I did not expect this thread to engender so much interest. So I appreciate everyone who has replied thus far.

Well, the bible, which I have read, does call christians to witness for Him. I must say, you are doing an excellent job. I sure hope there are many people on this forum that are reading and learning. It is for everyone's own good. If anyone doubts what you are saying, I invite them to read and study the bible, which is undeniably God's Holy Word. Happily, it is nationally, the best selling book, year after year.

[physasst]

Well, the bible, which I have read, does call christians to witness for Him. I must say, you are doing an excellent job. I sure hope there are many people on this forum that are reading and learning. It is for everyone's own good. If anyone doubts what you are saying, I invite them to read and study the bible, which is undeniably God's Holy Word. Happily, it is nationally, the best selling book, year after year.

GREAT discussion, nice to see a fellow minnesotan as well....NOW, on to the discussion. From my time in the military, and from working in that cesspool of humanity known affectionately as the "ER", I cannot under any circumstances have a belief in god. I think the great Carl Sagan put it best...."It is likely that when we die, that is it, no bright light, no afterlife, just nothingness". If god does exist, than he is evil and malevolent. As far as the bible, how exactly is it "undeniably God's Holy Word." Dr Seuss has written extensively as well, would not his writings be considered scripture....Many religious experts agree that the bible was not written for close to 400 years after Christ died. How in any way does that make the bible little more than a book of fables? Christ himself, at least IMO, was little more than another cult leader, albeit, possibly the most famous, enduring one of all time. But how can we tell the difference between him, and say David Koresh? Please keep in mind that I am not trying to antagonize, but rather to question.

Here's a few more....these are not mine, but thought I'd share, as they seem pertinent

Jesus was strongly against public prayer (Matthew 6:5-6).

According to Mark 16:16-18 a true Christian should be baptized, have faith, cast out demons, speak in tongues, take up serpents, be able to heal the sick, and be completely immune to any poison. If you don’t wish to test your poison immunity, you could ignore that part of the holy scriptures and just go by John 3:16 which states that a Christian must believe in Christ as their savior, but then again John 14:12 states that real Christians will be able to perform greater miracles than Christ himself (see also Mat 17:20, 21:21, Mark 11:23, and Luke 17:6). I have received comment that these scriptures only refer to "possible" signs of Christians, but in reading the passages you'll find these are statements by Jesus about what a Christian "shall" do, and taken together it's clear the Bible teaches that Christians should have some sort of abnormal power.

John 1:18 states that no one has seen God. But this is contradicted by Genesis 32:30 which states that Jacob saw his face, Exodus 33:23 which states that Moses saw his backside, and Genesis 18 in which God sits down to have dinner with Abraham (God eats?).

According to Matthew 1:18-21 Jesus was conceived by the holy spirit and was thus the product of a virgin birth. But this is contradicted by Romans 1:3, which states that Jesus was conceived by the seed of David according to the flesh (see also Question 11)--as you will see the New Testament authors are a disagreeable lot.

Ecclesiastes 1:4 states that the earth will exist forever. But this is contradicted by 2Peter 3:10, which states that the Earth will burn up with Armageddon, which is really unfortunate for the meek as they were scheduled to inherit it (Mat 5:5).

Jesus says to hate your family in Luke 14:26, and Matthew 10:35-36. He says to abandon your family (including children) to follow him in Matthew 19:29 (It is hard to keep control of followers when they have familial connections questioning their faith). He says to call no man on earth your father in Matthew 23:9, and says to honor your father and mother in Matthew 19:19. Jesus, or his writers, seemed a bit confused.

According to Luke 3:23, Heli was the paternal grandfather of Jesus, but according to Matthew 1:16 and John 4:5 it was Jacob. Mark disagreed (Mark 12:35-37), but Luke and Matthew were determined to make Jesus a descendant of David even at the cost of contradicting their own virgin birth stories and each other

Jesus makes it perfectly clear that he came to cause strife and not peace (Luke 12:51-53, Matthew 10:34), and the historical evidence is there to back him up (the deaths of the Inquisition, the Crusades, witch burning, Northern Ireland, etc.).

The Bible seems to state that God both does and does not favor the righteous. Consider Job, who was a righteous and prosperous man. But to test Job's faith, God sent Satan to ruin his life (Job 2:1-7). How about Exodus 9:12, 10:1,20,27, 11:10, 14:8 and so on where God continually "hardened Pharaohs heart” so He could show off in a twisted game of miracles, climaxing in the death of innocent first born gentiles. God himself admits to purposefully creating evil (Isaiah 45:7) and has endorsed many causes even religious conservatives would find offensive (e.g. slavery in Leviticus 25:44-46, Exodu 21:2-8, Eph. 6:5, and Col. 3:22). On the other hand Proverbs 12:2 says that a good man has God's favor. As for Jesus, in Matthew 7:7 he states that whatever a man asks of God he will receive (Has no one yet thought to ask for a cure for cancer?). But earlier in Matthew 5:45 Jesus seems to say that God favors neither the good nor the evil.

The Bible believes the Earth is flat, mentioning its ends and corners often (Isaiah 11:12, Rev. 7:1). If you are thinking that these were merely strange figures of speech, you are shown to be incorrect by Daniel 4:10-11, where, in a God interpreted dream, a tree grows so high that the whole world can see it. In Daniel 2:35 we have a rock which grows enough to cover the whole earth (only reasonable on a flat earth). Finally, in Matthew 4:5-8 and Luke 4:5 Satan whisks Christ off to a high mountain peak from which they could see "all the kingdoms of the world". I'm sure the Aztecs would have objected to being excluded simply because of the Earth's curvature.

The Bible also thinks the sun moves around a stationary Earth, the moon has its own light, and that stars can detach from the "firmament" to fall to earth (Isaiah 13:10, Psalm 19:4-5, 1Sam 2:8, 1Chr 16:30, Psalm 96:10, Psalm 104:5, Micah 6:2, Mat 214:29, Rev 8:10). The Bible shows the value of Pi to be 3 and unless mathematics has somehow changed in 3000 years we now know it to be an irrational 3.14159265358979... (2Chronicles 4:2, 1King7:23). The Bible states that light didn't refract through water drops to create rainbows until god altered the laws of physics (for just water I guess) as a promise never to flood the earth again (Gen 9:13). In the realm of genetics the Bible gives this helpful breading tip--if you let your goats copulate while looking at striped rods they will produce striped baby goats (Gen 30:37-43). One last one--The Bible also blames such ailments as blindness and the inability to speak on demon position (Mat 9:32,12:22). All simple mistakes for early religion-creating humans, but surly not for the infallible word of God. It makes you wonder why the creationists are just focusing on evolution and completely ignoring the antichristian rhetoric of the "Round Earth Theory" being taught to unsuspecting children in our elementary schools.

Today's bible scholars think it went something like the following. Mark, a non-Jewish Roman, was the first gospel writer, writing about 40 years after the purported death of a man named Jesus who may have existed. He collected the loose stories about Jesus from rumors floating around the Christian community and created the first gospel. In looking at the other gospels it becomes clear they used Mark as their base (judging by the verbatim quotes of Mark found in the others), but they were not content with Mark’s portrayal. They wanted a Jesus to rival the Roman gods and conform more to the Old Testament predictions and so added on and edited Mark to fit each of their own particular view of what a Jesus should be like (The virgin birth, the passion play, the baptism, etc.). An easy example of the author’s use of artistic license is found in the instance of the trial of Jesus. We are given a step-by-step account of the events based on old testament prophesy, after being told all the disciples had fled leaving no one to record what actually happened. Many more gospels were written but when the church finally got organized it chose the ones which best fit the organization’s goals. They did a good job of editing as 1500 years later Christianity is one of the stronger religions in spite of its obvious selective reading of the Bible. This book is a collection of myths from a culture quite different from our own, and although the stories may be uplifting, in parts, it is not truth—truth does not contradict its self.


I really don't understand how religious faith has become such a popular and acceptable notion. If I told you that I believed smoking doesn't cause cancer and my only evidence was my hope for such a thing to be true, I'd be ostracized and rightly so. But this is exactly the same pro-faith argument the Bible makes (Hebrews 11:1). By definition it's belief without proof which, in itself, is akin to possession without ownership (I think I may be paraphrasing someone here.), but I'd argue faith is more dangerous than simple theft. Once you decide to give up reason for 100% certainty, a wild and horrible world can, and has in the past, become reasonable (Genocide, terrorism, manifest destiny, witch burning, religious wars, and so on). An unquestionable and deep sense of belief is all a good person needs to commit some of the most horrible acts. But, to most ideologies, faith is necessary for their operation in the face of their inherent contradictions (By my count the Bible mentions faith 402 times). No belief should be held so strongly that it can't be let go when shown to be false, and no honest person who loves truth should call himself or herself a person of faith; to describe yourself in such a way almost seems like an insult.

The Bible warns extensively about false prophets, and philosophies which can lure a person away from "truth" (Col. 2:1-8, 2Peter 2:1-3, John 1:7, Matthew 13:22, Matthew 7:15). Along with faith these commands make Christianity an efficient philosophical perpetual motion machine. The Bible is believed to be unquestionably true through faith and anything contradictory is a falsehood, inspired by the devil, by definition. Why would anyone create such an organization? For starters, it was a great way to combat the injustices and brutalities of long-expired governments. But today it's become the perfect business--tithing and obedience are purchased through bribes and extortion (heaven and hell), and today it's all tax free. It may be frightening initially to live without the comforts of faith, but if we really want purpose, peace, justice and morality, we must first and foremost want truth, and resist the temptation to settle for certainty, no matter how soothing it may be. As Thomas Jefferson wrote: question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. These days “witches” aren’t getting burned at the stake, and you may feel like you're hurting no one with your faith based pleasure, but everyday perfectly just and good people are being stigmatized and others taken advantage of through the workings of faith. Belief is not necessary; uncertainty and skepticism can be comfortable parts of a human life, and I think, in the end, such a life is more humane.

[walterick]

You are arguing a lost cause here.

Yes, but I must try